There have been plenty of games this season in which Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown guided the Celtics to wins without much help. They are both capable of scoring explosions, and sometimes that will be enough.
But the team’s reliance on the duo created some questions about what would happen when their shots were not really falling, and defenses were daring the Celtics to seek offense elsewhere.
On Thursday night, both Brown and Tatum had relatively subdued scoring nights, and it did not matter, because their teammates sprayed 3-pointers from all angles and steered them to a 120-106 win at TD Garden.
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Semi Ojeleye, getting a rare start, provided the most improbable lift, drilling 6 of 8 3-pointers en route to a career-high 24 points. Payton Pritchard hit 6 of 8 3-pointers and scored 20 points, and Kemba Walker was 5 for 8 from beyond the arc and scored 21. Tatum and Brown combined to make just 8 of 27 shots, but they were efficient distributors, combining for 19 assists.
Observations from the game:
▪ Coach Brad Stevens said that so far this season the defense and ball movement have emerged as his primary concerns. Thursday’s game offered encouraging signs on the latter issues, with Boston registering 30 assists on 39 made field goals.
Brown and Tatum accounted for 19, and that will remain an important part of their evolution as they face an increasing number of double teams.
“Those guys attract so much attention,” Walker said. “Whenever they get doubled we have to be in our correct spots, and we were tonight. Those guys made the right passes and we made some shots.”
The Raptors’ defensive scheme is particularly focused on slowing an opposing team’s top players, so the Celtics were prepared for the game to unfold this way.
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“You have to be a willing, quick, decision-maker,” Stevens said. “And those guys know that. We played against Toronto a lot. And the better you get, the more attention you get and the more you have to make those plays. Both those guys are in the group of players that draw a lot of attention and so it’s something that they’re going to have to continue to do for us to be the best that we can be.”
▪ This one will make a good barroom trivia question for however long it lasts: Ojeleye and Pritchard became the first Celtics teammates to hit six 3-pointers in the same game.
▪ Walker snapped out of his funk a bit by connecting on the five 3-pointers. Stevens said it was notable that several of Walker’s shots came after receiving passes rather than trying to create for himself off the dribble, and he hopes to see more of that.
Walker is in the midst of an odd shooting stretch. Over the last three games he is 10 for 23 on 3-pointers and 1 for 21 on 2-pointers.
“I’m still just trying to find my rhythm,” he said. “I went a long time without touching a basketball before I even started playing. I just got to get back to that stuff, which I will. It takes time, I have to let the game come to me a little bit. Nothing with my knee or anything like that.”
▪ With Robert Williams out because of a sore hip, Stevens inserted Ojeleye into the starting lineup in place of Tristan Thompson. It was partly so the Celtics would have a backup center, and partly because Boston’s double-big lineup struggled against the Raptors when these teams met in Tampa last month. Ojeleye started the second half of that game and Boston roared to a win, and that stuck with Stevens.
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And Ojeleye certainly took advantage of the chance. He drilled two early 3-pointers and scored 8 of Boston’s first 12 points, and that was just the beginning. Walker and Pritchard both said they often tell Ojeleye to take any open shot he gets. He’s now shooting 38.2 percent from beyond the 3-point arc this season.
“I think he should just keep on shooting and find ways and space the floor and get that shot off,” Pritchard said, “because it’s money.”
▪ Despite Boston’s scorching shooting, the Raptors pulled within 98-93 on a Pascal Siakam basket with 6:40 left. Boston’s defense had mostly allowed the Raptors to gash them in the paint, but during this important stretch, it punched back. The Celtics blocked four of Toronto’s next five shots as they reclaimed control with a 15-2 run.
“All those were good stay-in-the-play blocks,” Stevens said. “Like the Jaylen one was the stay in the play block in transition. [Daniel] Theis had a couple where he caught up to [Aron] Baynes on the roll and then another one where he blocked [Chris] Boucher, kind of in the seams there. Those are really good multiple-effort blocks. So that was a real positive.”
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▪ It hasn’t been glaring, but Tatum is quietly in a bit of a shooting slump. He has connected on 50 percent of his shots just once in nine games since being sidelined with COVID-19 and after going 5 for 13 Thursday is now 20 for 55 over his last three.
▪ The Celtics held a 17-0 edge in second-chance points and gave up just three offensive rebounds.
“The best part about that stat is, is that they were driving it by us some and we were still getting back into the play and rebounding,” Stevens said. “So that’s the hard part. Sometimes when your defense gets broken down, they kick it out, they spray it out, but we did a good job on the glass. We didn’t do as good of a job guarding the ball.”
Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him @adamhimmelsbach.